I spent Memorial Day back in Georgia with family, where one of my nieces has been begging me to take her fishing. So, when we went down I brought two spinning rods and four fly rods, and figured that should be enough to get everyone into fish. I tooker her out, and 4 more of her cousins, not including my own three boys, so it turns out I didnt have quite enough rods, but everyone took turns and it worked out well. The fish were extremely cooperative as well. We were on a shady point on the lake, with a little cove to one side, and the bream were throing themselves on the hook. (An interesting note, as you'll see below, the girls fished the flyrods all afternoon with no problems, and loved it, the boys gave up after two casts and went stright to the worm rods, they had no patience! "This is too much trouble" they all complained)

The first fish of the day, caught on a 3wt with a foam spider by my niece who has never fished before!

Her brother didnt have the patience for the flyrod, so he caught his on the bait rod.

My other niece caught this big bream on a 6wt with a wooly bugger...

and later on caught this beast of a bluegill on with a bass popper n my old fenwick glass rod (after she saw me catch a 12 inch largemouth on it ;-). Way to catch bream in style!

Jack was stalking the bream in the shallows with the worm rod. He would wade out in the water, and be still until the fish came back, and just drop the worm right in fron of the fish he wanted and snag it when it hit. Not the most conventional means, but he was effective, and most of all, having a blast!

Mt brother-in-law came over to help (he is a beginner flyfisherman as well!) and here is helping unhook one of his sons fish.

My oldest niece fished that 3wt for hours once she got ahold of it she refused to let go. I taught her to roll cast, and how to dry the foam spider by squeezing the water out in your t-shirt. I tied on a black gnat dropper, and she caught over 10 fish, and probably had 100 missed strikes.

And of course Eli, he wa the youngest kid there, and spent most of his time catching frogs, but I would catch a few bream on the spinning rod, and let them run out the line, and call him over to reel it back in and he loved it. He was so excited. He told everyone he caught a fish "THIS BG!!" and held his arms wide.

Afterwards I got a ton of hugs and smiles, as everyone had a great time catching fish for hours all afternoon. I had a great time as well, watching those kids laugh and get excited, and tell me how much they love fishing. The oldest niece wants a flyrod for her birthday now so she can go fishing with her daddy (Jake, the guy in the picture above unhooking the fish). Jake told me later how glad he was that she enjoyed it, and how this past week they started fishing the creek near their house with some foam spiders and black gnats and been ctaching tons of fish, and having a grat time together, and now "hes a little less worried about having a teenage daughter."

On a related note:
Her twin brother (not pictured) has been wanting to fish the Smokies with me for a while now. He did once last year, but I hadnt figured the fish out yet, so we didnt catch anything, but hes been wanting a rod, and so I found an old fiberglass Berkely Buccaneer for him. I put an old pfleuger sal-trout reel that I got for free essentially when I bought something off a guy a long time ago, and put a cortland line that came with something else I bought on it. So for basically $20 I was able to get him a functional flyfishing outfit. Wasnt pretty, but was funtional. He sent me a message and hes loving it, and has been fishing that creek everyday, catching bream and small bass, and he cant wait to bring it up and try it in the Smokies on a backpacking trip. I really hope this helps keep him busy and out of trouble, and just maybe he will have a hobby to enjoy the rest of his life.

Great post......good job......I enjoyed the young man's wade, wait and attack method....... my daughter who fly fishes says, "of course the girls chose the fly rods.......superior intelligence and all......" If you haven't fished for bluegills,bream, etc. with a fly rod, you do not know what you are missing....I wish we had ten pounders!!!

__________________
Here I walk slowly, deliberately, taking it one step, one trout, one sunset at a time. -Harry Middleton